


An Elegant Equation

by Miri1984



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: F/F, First Meeting, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-01-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:40:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22289542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miri1984/pseuds/Miri1984
Summary: Marie first meets Eldarion when she is a student in Prague.
Relationships: Eldarion/Marie Curie (Rusty Quill Gaming), Marie Curie (Rusty Quill Gaming)/Eldarion
Comments: 13
Kudos: 33





	An Elegant Equation

Marie never liked to sit next to people during lectures, mostly because their shifting and fiddling distracted her. She liked space around her, liked to think it gave her mind more room to roam whenever an idea caught her fancy. She knew she often drifted, which was fine. Most of what the professors talked about she could find through other sources, and she could usually absorb the information far more readily from a book than from the lacklustre droning of whichever old man had decided he knew more about magic than her father and her sister had already taught her.

Today it was Illusion. Professor Krzywicki had some interesting theories on permanency and the necessity for high level mind manipulation but Marie was distracted by the double height chalkboard at the edge of the lecture theatre, covered with equations.

Krzywicki didn’t use the chalk boards - his notes floated above his lectern in letters of fire (or ice, depending on his mood, today it was fire so he’d probably had a good Friday night in the lower city) so the equations had been left untouched as they took their seats in the auditorium. They were written in a flowing, elegant script, each symbol looking lovingly crafted at the same time as they appeared to effortlessly flow across the board. Marie had been staring at them for nearly half an hour before she realised what they were even describing - planar travel - the interactions between this plane and every other - manipulation of time and space.

She felt her heart thump faster in her chest and she leaned forward. Only the front board was fully visible, pulled down over the first so that tantalising hints of conclusions could be seen on the board behind. Marie’s hands itched, she wanted to get down there and examine all of the equations, drink in their simplicity and elegance. But she couldn’t wander down in front of the Professor and throw the first board out of the way, not in the middle of a lecture, so she had to content herself with rapidly copying down those equations she could see, trying desperately to reverse engineer the conclusions she could see without the steps behind them…

It only felt like a few minutes of anxious scribbling but when she looked up from puzzling over the last line of the visible board in her notes the lecture theatre was empty.

There was no question she needed to see the other board.

Marie wasn’t the tallest woman in the world and the first board had been thrown up well beyond her reach. An irritated flick of her hand and mage hand brought it down to where she could pour over it. She didn’t bother to sit back down, standing in front of the board with her notebook in hand as she transcribed what she could see and attempted to follow the thought processes of the mind behind the writing.

“I probably should have erased that,” a soft, lilting voice came from behind her and Maria fumbled, nearly dropping the notebook as she turned. 

“Erase it? Gods why would you erase it? It’s absolutely fascinating and I’d give my… left hand… to…”

She trailed off, equations fading slightly into the background of her mind as she took in the woman who was stood at the front entrance to the lecture theatre, head tilted to one side, a quizzical, interested smile on her perfect face.

She was elven, that much was obvious, slender and tall and utterly composed, her hair swept back from her face which was all sharp planes and angles and large, darkly amused eyes.

Marie smoothed an ink stained hand down the front of her skirt, palms suddenly sweaty, but she tilted her chin, refusing to give in to the traitorous desire in her chest to stammer an apology and run from the room.

The woman didn’t seem to notice her discomfort. “Because it’s incomplete,” she said, and stepped closer, reaching up easily to pull down the board that had originally hindered Marie’s view. “See, here,” she said, pointing out the initial equations that had at first so captivated Marie. “I simply cannot reconcile the time differentials.”

Marie shook her head, breathing in, and stepped up beside the woman. She smelled like citrus and electricity and slightly damp earth, reminiscent of days spent in the forests surrounding Warsaw with her sister during a storm. Dangerous. And exciting.

But the magic, the  _ magic -  _ that was more important than the warmth radiating from the woman’s skin, than the sweep of her jaw as Marie glanced up at her, than the soft waves of hair cascading down the back of her finely tailored coat. “No,” Marie said, confidence creeping back into her voice. She  _ knew  _ this. “No, see you’re on the right track, the solution is imbedded in your earlier equations we just need to…”

#

When the first students filtered in for the post lunch lectures they had covered almost all of the boards with their work. Marie’s writing was smaller, more cramped than the woman’s and when they stepped back, Marie somewhat sheepishly and the woman with a wondering expression across her beautiful face, Marie couldn’t help but think they worked well together, that they looked right, interweaving and picking up where the other had left off.

“We didn’t solve it,” the woman said, looking down at her, eyes shining.

“No,” Marie said. But she couldn’t help the smile on her face.

The moment was broken by an irritated shout.

“What is all this  _ rubbish  _ on my blackboards? Eldarion? Why are you here? You’re supposed to be in Munich!”

The woman - Eldarion, Marie realised - looked over her shoulder at Professor Krzywicki and smiled.

“My apologies, Ludvik,” she said softly, and raised a hand. With a flick the boards were cleaned. Marie couldn’t help it, a small gasp of disappointment escaped her lips, but Eldarion took her hand in hers (warm and long fingered and delicate) and pulled her gently towards the doors. “Won’t happen again.”

“Curie? Krzywicki said then. “Aren’t you supposed to be in this…”

“I’m borrowing her, Ludvik,” Eldarion said over her shoulder, still pulling Marie with her. “I promise she’ll catch up.”

Marie wasn’t entirely sure how she ended up striding briskly through the lower courtyard of the university, one hand clutching her satchel and notebook, the other still firmly clasped in Eldarion’s. Eldarion’s stride was far longer than Marie’s and she had to skip occasionally to keep up, but she never once thought to let go and turn back to the lecture theatre. She was supposed to be there, there were exams coming and she had obligations and responsibilities, but her mind was still alight with the purity and beauty of Eldarion’s calculations and when Eldarion looked back at her and smiled she felt her breath catch in her throat.

Eldarion sat her down in the cafeteria, hand still tangled in hers, eyes shining. “Tell me,” she said.

“What?” Marie asked. 

Eldarion's smile widened and Marie couldn’t help but respond, squeezing Eldarion’s fingers and leaning forward in her chair..

“Everything.”


End file.
